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Vard Benúdae
Vard Benúdae is the current and 9th Prime Minister of the Republic of Soigá, in effect since the national elections in 2014. If first name is not given, his name should be spelled Benúdá, instead of (Vard) Benúdae, according to Olfkin rules. As the head of the 10th Cabinet of the Republic of Soigá, Benúdá is praised for his realpolitik and handling the cabinet, as the cabinet consists of four parties with combined 83 seats, just enough for a seat majority (there are 165 seats in the Parliament of Soigá). Praised for decreasing unemployement and increasing economic growth, but criticised for not combating the debt (the deficit had only grown) and being "wasteful" of money. Some harshly criticise him for "acting in the interest for a party just to gain support from that party", naming as example his supposed support for green energy just to get the support of the Green party but making "un-green proposals later on". Supporters of Benúdá generally counter these claims, calling it "political opportunism". Early life Benúdá was born to a rural Catholic family consisting of five children in the small town of Ceroz-Sésí, in the modern regio of Polčímer, on the 8th of May, 1965. Vard is a common Olfkin name, roughly equal to John in English. His surname means "from the Ben tribe". His family was poor since the father, Jigard Benúdae, had a somewhat longer left leg than his right one, making working difficult. As a result, the family had to live of a meagre state benefit. The benefit was low because state officials had the opinion that Jigard could well work. Benúdá later said that this injustice was a major point to go into politics. Scholing options were limited as he lived in a rural area, and on his 16th Benúdá had finished school and planned to work in administration. As many young people, Benúdá was member of the Radical Reform Youth Party, the only allowed youth party at the time. Doing simple administration jobs, eventually Vard Benúdae, interested in politics, saved some money to go to higher education and study Political Science in Monéjá, the second biggest city in Soigá. It was 1983, and Benúdá started studying, and what some dub "The Soigan Revolution", had happened, and Soigá became a Republic, and freedom of joining/making of any party was allowed. Benúdá joined the Socialist Party, but eventually left it due to finding it too radical. Benúdá did finish his bachelor, but due to having too little money to continue, he stopped. He began working for the public transport department of the Monéjá city. Transportation was privatised in a wave of "anti socialism" by the government, mainly run by the liberal BML party. Benúdá however wrote a letter to the local newspaper criticising the government for what he called "naive and damaging thinking". He argued that since the privatisering prices had rose sharply, interiors deteriorated and most harshly he criticised how personnel was treated as a good and the change of tone of personnel to consumers and vice versa. His letter got recognition, and Benúdá took a part time job as column writer. In his columns he became critical about the liberal government, and also about its handling of critics and anti liberals, which he deemed not "constructive for the building of the new Republic". In 1989, he joined the newly founded party PPKD, and considered applying as candidate for alderman, in a later interview he said as response to the near majority the conservatives and right leaning liberals got in the municipality. Career as politician For the 1992 regional/municipial elections Benúdá hoped to get support of his party to designate him as candidate for the elections. However, this was not the case, but Benúdá still supported the party. Together with other party members, Benúdá started a political newspaper, with a "pragmatic left-leaning stance". At this point, he worked more hours for the party than for his real job. Benúdá became active in organising events for the party, and campaigning for candidates in elections. He started making connections with top party members, in the hope of getting the ticket to being candidate in the Monéjá city. In 1993 the Cabinet had fallen because the BML party did not want to support the socialist reforms the leading PPKD wanted to make. In the elections of that year PPKD won again, but now it was the question with whom it would rule. Benúdá was one of the few party members who said that BML should not be excluded and that compromises had to be made in favor of the country, and argued that many members were too focused for the party interests. In 1994 Vard Benúdae stopped with his job to completely focus on the party. He started to be well known for his opinion that the party was too ineffective because it couldn't at the moment make compromises and could rule with other parties. The PPKD party could get a near majority in the regional/municipial elections in 1995 in Monéjá, and Benúdá was appointed Alderman for Transportation, his favourite subject. Under his term of alderman saw the building of the first metro line in Monéjá, and the public transportation system in the city becoming in the hands of the city. An additional 800 jobs were created for the maintanance of the roads and rails. His role as pragmatic mediator was crucial in getting tough reforms in the city. In the following elections in 1998 for the regions and municipalities, Benúdá became Secretary of Jobs for Mišömerá. This meant he had the head role for allocating the budget he got for jobs. Although more radical party members said that they thought Benúdá was too "soft" and too easy giving up in favour of the BML party, his term is generally praised. Numerous infrastructure jobs were created for a big project that would repair several roads and create new ones in order to bypass the heavy traffic problems between Monéjá and Makán. At the time, house prices were increasing fast in Mišömerá, and Benúdá proposed to replace some money meant for the jobs to the Secretary of Houses, to build housing areas. This was agreed on. In 2000, it seemed like the PPKD would break in two: some wanted to push for a more radical left approach, while others wanted a more moderate, "realpolitik" approach. Benúdá was already known for his more left-leaning thoughs but also for his realpolitik, and was chosen to be the vice chairman of the PPKD party. Benúdá agreed on it, after he had to stop his position in the Regional commitee as PPKD lost its stronghold in Mišömerá. He pushed for a coalition that would bypass liberal and/or conservative parties and to rule with other socialist/left green parties. Even though PPKD did not became the largest party, it was the only party that could form a coalition, and Benúdá played an influential role in making sure the other parties wouldn't form a coalition with right wing parties. This way, both factions in the party could be reassured. Benúdá said later that he chose this path because he was of the opinion that a fractured or fallen PPKD party would only pave a path for right wing parties supremacies, which would "destroy" the left-wing policies the PPKD party had laboriously made the last decade. As Vice Chairman of the Party, Benúdá was responsible for strenghtening the Party's position both regional and national wide. In the regional elections of 2004, the PPKD managed to regain many lost votes. Benúdá played an influential role in this, as he gave the direction of where the Party should have its plans in the regional elections. For example, Benúdá gave the recommandation to the nominees to focus on jobs and green energy. The election went so well, that in absolute terms, the PPKD scored the most votes. In 2003, the PPKD lost the national elections, although they became the second largest party, only 2 seats behind the largest party, BML. The process of making a coalition was difficult: BML needed a coalition with the PPKD, as together plus the hUD (who were willing for a coalition with the BML) would have resulted in more than 83 seats, the number of seats necessary to have a majority. BML otherwise would have to try to get into a coalition with a number of much smaller parties, which would make the process a lot harder, as then all the other parties would want their impact on the government agreement. In the PPKD party however, there was a lot of resistment against cooperation with, what some argue, the "arch rival" of the Party, namely the BML. Benúdá initially was as well against going into the coalition with the BML, which he stated clearly to the press after the election results, but he added that he would "not rule anything out"'. He convinced the Party to still go to the talking with the BML, to see what they offered. Eventually, when it was clear that BML would not be able to get a coalition with other parties, Benúdá knew that he had an opportunity. Some members of the PPKD party were fundamentally against cooperation with BML, but Benúdá could convince them that there was a great opportunity: PPKD, which BML needed to have a coalition with, had a great leverage: without them, BML would not be able to govern. Other party members saw the same thing, and quickly the top members gave their agreement to help BML to govern. However, the government agreement would be shoven to the left, quite a bit. BML had to agree, as at that moment the party had already gotten quite some embarrasment as the government discussions for a coalition had been the longest in history of the Republic: 199 days. Most of these days were the PPKD getting the government agreement to the left: many economic plans of the BML, like cutting money for state benefits, and lowering the taxes for the rich, were scrapped. Benúdá was not long after the agreement between the two parties chosen to lead the Party in the Parliament. In 2006 however, when the coalition BML-PPKD-hUD had been governing for 3 years, the Cabinet fell. The reason for this was that Benúdá refused to agree with BML's plans to allow privatising several primary schools and thus selling them to non governmental companies. According to BML, this was necessary to meet the budget cuts planned for the year. Prime Minister Lígaemas Aperífá of the BML then had a tamper infront of a press camera, saying that Benúdá was "sabotaging" the government and that he was doing that for 3 years straight now, and that BML had giving many things in, but that PPKD hardly gave anything in, and only were in the Cabinet "for the raisins on the cake". Furthermore, quite a few members of BML claimed that "enough is enough". As a way of showing discontent with PPKD's choice of not supporting BML's budget plans, BML boycotted the inaugeration of the new President Fektor Gaivélúdae (from the PPKD), and all the members of BML were not in the Parliament when PPKD presented their budget plans, and this way, the budget plan of the PPKD failed in getting enough votes. Haperífá (the "H" infront according to Olfkin rules) later said that PPKD "just met Newton's 3rd Law". He hoped for "renewed" discussions about the budget plans for the year. Benúdá replied by stating that the actions of BML were "politically unworthy" and playing "like clowns in a circus". He also added that he did not have trust anymore in the Cabinet, saying "We had given clear boundaries to where our support in the Cabinet would go, yet BML thinks that can change in one night". Quite unexpectably, PPKD announced that they had chosen to step out of the Cabinet, thereby triggering new forthcoming elections. Some analists note that this seems quite a radical change in Benúdá's way of politics, however others note that hereby Benúdá could keep the party together, as more and more members were expressing their discontent over the years over the cooperation with BML. Many felt like they were backstabbing their voter base, and that the government agreement was still too much in favour of BML. The elections were held in 2006, and although in that year there were already Presidential elections, the national elections were not postphoned since they are of a higher order in the election hierarchy of the political system in Soigá, and as the Presidential elections had already happened before the fall of the Cabinet, no election could thus be postphoned. Although many party members wanted Benúdá to go for Prime Minister, Benúdá said he preferred Vard Nekómíkae as nominee. He gave as reason that Nekómíká had clear aspirations for being prime minister, and had so for nearly 20 years, and was a loyal member of the party, and that he was reaching the age where one wouldn't go so fast for Prime Minister. And that besides that he is a good friend and supporter of Benúdá. Benúdá as well stated that his role in the Party could have more impact if he stayed leader of the Party in the Parliament. Benúdá was an ardent campaigner of Nekómíká's campaign, and was seen in every major city flyering, and on radio he was often in discussion with members of other parties who were campaigning for their party nominee. The campaign was a succes: PPKD won the largest number of seats they had since 1997, with 65 seats. This allowed for the Party to have an easier negotiation process for the new Cabinet. Although BML tried to get a counter alliance against PPKD, they failed in that as PPKD could get a broad Cabinet with 2 other parties: VhÁPF (the Green) and hUD (left-leaning liberals). The first two years of the Cabinet were relatively succesful: as the dominant party in both the Cabinet and Parliament, quite a lot of bills could get passed and the economy was growing at decent growth rate. However, the Crisis of 2008 had happened, and Soigá was hit severely. Debt was increasing at alarming speed, and many jobs were lost. Some measures taken by the Cabinet to avoid worse were necessary, but highly unpopular. Nevertheless, the Cabinet didn't fall, unlike the previous. When elections were upcoming, new and previously unknown parties started to increase in seats in polls, mainly by showing discontent in the Cabinet. Numbers about how popular the Cabinet was, were falling rapidly. People felt betrayed by the PPKD, as budget cuts in pensions and state benefits were decreased by quite a bit. Many parties tried to jump into the opening hole PPKD left of "the Party that protects the workers". The election of 2010 decimated the PPKD: the party lost more than 3/4rd of its seats. Its top position was lost to the KJ, the United Christians Party. Many of the lost seats went to new, growing parties as the Pacifists or more populistic parties as PPhÖZ. Benúdá was seen arguing with many members of these parties, and Benúdá later stated that the result of the election had "devastated" him. He couldn't believe it, and was so shocked he didn't do anything working related for weeks. He reiterated that it was hard to get to the "normal Vard John" about why the cuts were necessary. He acknowledged that he had difficulties with that. After a few weeks of reconsideration, Benúdá went back to working, and planned meetings with the Party to evaluate plans for the upcoming years, to regain the votes in the election of 2014. election of 2014 Prime Minister of Soigá Personal life References Category:Soigá